December 21, 2006

Social Media, Dance Videos and the Future of Auditions

As things stand today, the Internet is used in only the most limited way for dance auditions - the one exception is the posting of dates and locations for upcoming auditions. There are very, very few dancers who post audition videos on the web and there are almost no producers of music videos, theatrical productions, TV shows or dance companies that turn to the Internet to find new dance talent.

But this situation is about to change. And my guess is that by the end of 2007 many dancers will be creating audition videos specifically for the web.

I think there are a number of developments that will have contributed to this likely development:

1) Reality shows featuring competitions among participants are hugely popular and increasingly embrace the Internet to build audiences, share behind-the-scenes videos and, in some cases, seek user contributions. American Idol is the most obvious example.

2) Dance has gone mainstream with hit shows such as ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance."

3) Social media, as highlighted in Time's Person of the Year - "You" - has also gone mainstream meaning that millions of people have embraced the idea of creating and uploading their own videos.

4) We're seeing the initial growth in hybrid programs that combine different media and stages. The upcoming TV show Grease, which will premiere on NBC in January, will be a reality show to find the leads for a new Broadway production of this popular musical. The Stand Up or Sit Down comic contest on MySpace sought user submissions and the winning comics got to perform in Las Vegas. (My post about this contest). And,

5) Maybe most important, popular sites such as YouTube are already being used by casting agents and others to encourage dancers to submit video auditions. I provide links below to some of these online dance auditions.

Types of Internet-Based Dance Auditions

Online dance auditions will take two main forms: open and closed.

An open audition will be a completely public affair. Dancers upload their dance videos and the public watches and, maybe, votes on their favorite videos. The producers may then whittle down the list of finalists and ask fans to choose the winner.

A closed audition would take place when a booking agent, for example, wants to attract a large pool of talent but doesn't want to share the submissions with competitors or the public.

My guess is that the first model will be more popular and will often be tied to TV programs, Broadway shows and concerts.

Will fewer dance auditions take place for music videos, theatrical productions, TV shows, and dance companies as a result of an increase in online auditions? Not in most cases. Virtual auditions simply provide a way to reach a larger pool of talent that booking agents might not otherwise have known about. And for dancers, they get to participate in auditions that they might never have traveled to. But in instances where auditions take place exclusively online, clearly there will not be traditional live auditions.

Overall, video auditions will not really work unless the quality of submitted videos goes way up. I've taken a look at a number of uploaded dance audition videos and the technical quality (production value) of the videos is usually horrendous. The lighting is too low, the image of the dancer is too small and the sound quality is terrible. So all participants in this process will want to learn how to create good quality videos - a topic I'll soon write about.

Online Dance Audition Links

Here are some interesting websites I came across related to new developments in online dance auditions that usually feature user-submitted videos. Actually, one of the links is for a casting company that creates online audition profiles of dancers and the last example is an audition for an upcoming drama series that is worth looking at.

- The Flaming Lips created a dance contest on YouTube where they invited fans to submit dance audition videotapes. Winners get to dance on stage with Flaming Lips at a New Year's concert. Here's video invite to contest from Flaming Lips. It hurt me to watch these videos.

- KoldCast is a start-up company that encouragers aspiring entertainers to post their videos in a YouTube group in response to casting calls. There are no submissions at this point.

- Here's a YouTube group for a film called "How They Dance." The producer is seeking dance audition videos from non-professional dancers. The 3 audition videos are actually from the live audition. They are not uploaded by users.

- Stefy will be creating a fan version of their music video "Hey School Boy." They've been holding a contest, "15 Seconds of Fame with STEFY," in conjunction with MTV2 on YouTube, seeking dance submissions from people who want to be featured in this video. The 5 top video auditions will be selected. There are 27 video auditions to date.

- Scene Interactive has an online casting service that features dancer profiles with videos. Producers and directors can be given password access to the full service to review profiles and watch videos - that's what the website says. But it appears that there's public access to all of the profiles. To have a profile created for you, there's a $50 set-up fee and then a $9.95 monthly charge. I watched some of the dancer videos. The images of the dancers seem too small to me to get a good enough view, but I like the plain white background.

- The Interior is an upcoming drama series. There is currently an online casting call for a number of the roles. Anybody who would like to can submit an audition for one of the lead roles. To submit a video, you can download a page from the script or create your own scene and then upload your video to the production's YouTube Group. There are 270 audition videos.

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December 19, 2006

Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching

Deep tagging of video clips may not grab you as the most exciting topic in the world, but it could prove invaluable for everybody involved in dance.

In this post, I'd like to define "deep tagging." Explain why it's important for dance and describe a handful of ways that it can be used. Plus, I'll link to posts I've written earlier about tagging. And then, at the end of this post, you'll find links to video applications that support deep tagging or offer related functionality.

First, some definitions and then I'll follow with possible applications dance.

Definitions

Tagging: Most social media sites allow users to "tag" multimedia content. For example, if you upload a video to YouTube, you can add keywords that describe the content you've just added. For a dance video, you may use the tags "dance" and "modern." The benefits of user tagging are that large numbers of files are quickly tagged and it becomes possible for visitors to search for videos by these keywords. The opposite of user tagging would be if a website publisher took sole responsibility for categorizing all content so that users could then conduct searches. With this latter approach, there is not a lot of flexibility, it takes a lot of time to implement, and users don't get to structure content in the way they want to.

Deep Tagging: If you go beyond adding tags to describe an entire video, and start tagging individual sections of a video, you have deep tagging. There are a number of video applications that allow you to do this. So you could tag just an "arabesque" in a dance video by tagging it "arabesque". Now users who are looking for a video example of an arabesque don't have to watch an entire video just to find this specific movement. They simply plug-in the word that describes the movement they are looking for and will be taken to the specific location within the video.

Deep Searching: I've just described an example of "deep searching" above. Instead of conducting a search for keywords or tags that describe an entire video, you conduct searches for tags that describe specific sections of a video and then get taken to the desired portion of the video clip. This saves a lot of time because you don't have to watch a five-minute video to find a five-second section that you happen to be looking for.

Deep Linking: Once you've tagged a portion of a video or found a tagged section of a video you find interesting, you may want to share the link with others. So you could put this link on your website or blog, or embed it in an email message. Now when users click on the link, they will be taken not to the start of the video but to the portion of the video that you want them to watch.

Deep Commenting: Many video sites let users add their own comments about videos. A more powerful tool is if users can place comments (text, audio and, even, video) at designated points within a video. So if a dance critic wanted to discuss their thoughts about a 10-second section of a dance clip, they could do that so that viewers can see exactly what the writer is discussing.

Deep Tagging Possibilities for Dance

Most spheres of dance would benefit by embracing deep tagging:

- Educating Dance Audiences

In my post "Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation" I discuss a number of specific video applications that can be used to add deep tags to sections of dance videos. By using such tools, dance audiences could learn significantly more about dance in almost no time.

- New Approaches to Dance Criticism

In my post "Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism" I offer my thoughts on how dance critics can transform how they write about dance by incorporating tagged video clips into their stories.

- Enhancing Promotional Videos

If you put a video on your website, blog or MySpace page of an upcoming performance, you may want to consider deep tagging this video to help give audiences more background and insight about this work.

I think it would be great if I could read about an upcoming performance and then after reading each paragraph, I could click on a link to watch a section of a larger video that corresponds to the text I had just read. Words, by themselves, can never do justice when video is available. With deep tagging tools, there is no reason why this cannot be done.

- Opportunities for College and University Dance Programs

I've never taken a college course in dance, but any university program devoted to the study of dance history and choreography has to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the evolution of dance styles and the influence that different eras of dance had on subsequent periods.

Standard approaches to studying this historical progression of dance forms and styles must be pretty time consuming and occasionally tedious. So while traditional research may always be required - going to archives and libraries that house videos of important performances, for example - there are new ways to perform similar types of research that will probably prove equally worthwhile if not even more helpful.

My suggestion may sound impractical, but please consider it for a moment. Around the globe there are a large number of dance programs at colleges and universities. There are thus thousands upon thousands of students studying dance choreography and composition and making videos of their work. These dance pieces cover all types and styles of dance that have been performed over the centuries.

So why not create a shared, online video archive of all student dance videos from all participating dance programs from around the world? Every year thousands of new videos would be added to this database. And dance students participating in these programs would have unlimited access to this online video library.

Now add deep tagging, searching, linking and commenting capabilities to this video library. You will now have one of the most powerful educational tools ever created for the study of dance. And you could even add a video editing and remixing tool so that students could combine sections of different videos into new videos to show progressions, tell stories and provide new insights about the relationship of different dance forms and styles.

- The Global Dance Project

In a post I wrote, "Global Historical Dance Video Project," I described my desire to see a large-scale initiative to create an online library of dance videos that showcased all styles and forms of dance.

In many ways this project is a public version of what I just described when discussing how dance programs at colleges and universities can collaborate with each other.

In this instance, I'm talking about a completely public, open project. There might be a centralized database in which users would create profiles about dance videos that were stored somewhere on the web. Users would then be able to tag each video or parts of each video so that other users could easily linked to specific styles and forms of dance.

It would be great if this type of video library were created. Since I recently started swing dancing, I'd like an easy way to compare and understand different styles of swing dance and get a better idea of what the historical progression of styles has been over the past 80 years or so. As things stand on the web today, it is just about impossible to find good videos that show the difference between the Jitterbug, Lindy and other forms of swing dance.

Tools and Technologies

I'm going to write new posts soon about various video applications, but I wanted to provide some initial links here:

- In the post I mentioned above, "Educating Dance Audiences," I link to a number of online video applications that allow you to add deep tags, links and comments to your videos.

- In addition to applications listed in the above story, you can also take a look at SceneMaker and Coull.tv.

- To make video remixes/mashups, take a look at Jumpcut and Eyespot. Also, take a look at this Dove mashup competition web site that has what looks like a good set of customized video editing and mashup tools. (You can't use these tools for your own purposes. I just think Dove did a good job).

- For online collaborative video editing, you can explore SyncVUE.

- The best possible development would be if somebody created a visual search tool for dance videos. For example, say you had a 5-10 second video clip of yourself performing a dance phrase and you wanted to find other dance videos that included similar movements. You could enter this video clip into a search engine and on the results page you would see a list of dance videos that included matches. By match I mean that the videos contained a sequence of movements that were almost identical to or relatively similar to the sequence in your 5-10 second video. I don't know what research has been done in this area, but it would be great to find out what has been done to date. In the static image world (photos), one site I know of is Riya that is used for matching images of products, people and objects. So you can select a person's face in a picture and then find all pictures in which this same person appears.

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December 18, 2006

Generating Revenue with Dance Videos

Continuing my series of stories about dance and video, I'd like to devote this post to different ways to use online video to generate direct and indirect revenue. Some of the ideas I suggest below are more practical than others. I figured I'd try to come up with as many ideas as possible and then, later on, focus on those that seem the most feasible.

1) Sell More Tickets

The number one use of online dance video is to sell more tickets for upcoming dance performances. But I think that the dance community is at the very early stages of figuring out the optimal way to use online video to motivate viewers to buy tickets.

I start with a number of questions:

- What does an ideal promotional dance video look like? Do you show clips from the stage performance that you are promoting or from dress rehearsals? Do you include interviews with choreographers and dancers? How long should these videos be? And what type of promotional pitch should be made in these videos. Do you know I have never seen a performance dance video that had a voice over or a talking head actually encouraging video viewers to buy tickets.

- How do you integrate these videos into your website along with the text descriptions of your upcoming performances? Overall, I think most dance websites do not do justice to the performances that they promote. For starters, I usually do not find sufficient information about a performance on a website to even make a decision about whether to go or not. So part of the issue, from a marketing perspective, doesn't pertain to videos. It's simply making written information about performances at least as accessible and comprehensive as a program guide that is distributed to audience members at performances. Then, the next issue is how to go about integrating video with these enhanced online descriptions.

- The next issue has to do with video quality. If you want to include excerpts from a performance or dress rehearsal, how do you go about shooting a video when the lighting conditions, for one, are optimized for a live audience and not video viewers? I've seen a lot of dance videos where the lighting and other production elements were fairly poor. So it's important to figure out how to create compelling videos given some of the technical and production challenges that may be faced.

- Finally, why should dancers and dance companies spend time and money on producing good quality, promotional videos for the Internet when they may not have any financial incentive to do so? I do not know too much about the contracts entered into between dance companies and presenters, but my guess is that dance companies usually do not generate extra revenue by helping to promote a performance unless they are presenting their own work. So if there is no financial motivation, how can a dance company justify spending extra time and money on producing good quality videos for the Internet? Are there new ways that dance companies and presenters can collaborate so good quality online video can be produced that might help attract larger audiences?

- And finally, finally, video challenges are compounded both by contractual and intellectual property issues. For dancers who are part of a union, the contracts between dancers and dance companies tend to impose many limitations on how video can be used for promotional purposes. Essentially, these restrictions are so limiting that, I think, dance companies, dancers and everybody else involved in dance productions lose out on using the Internet as a powerful marketing platform. Then, there are additional issues relating to intellectual property. Many people contribute to a performance. There are many questions about how each artist or group of artists gets properly compensated for artistic output when video of a production is made available online. You have the choreography, the dancers, lighting, set design, costumes and music - that's a lot of people and interests to take into consideration.

2) Sell dance Videos and Dance Instruction

Theoretically, there is a huge untapped market for the online sale of downloadable dance performance videos, video dance/dance on camera works, and dance instruction.

I'm optimistic that there must be a way for dancers, instructors, dance companies and video dance directors/producers to generate modest to significant revenue through online sales even if we have no proven models to follow at this time and nobody has made any money at this to date. Of course, I'm happy to be proven wrong if you have success stories to share.

The reason why I'm optimistic is because there is a huge Internet audience and dance videos can be sold very inexpensively in order to generate decent revenue. If you produce an appealing video and sell it for something like $2.99 a copy, revenue can add-up if you can figure out how to target the right audience.

What will be the big sellers? I'd guess the number one seller will be dance instruction videos - if they are effective at teaching students what they want/need to learn. I've looked at many dance instruction DVDs, and, almost across the board, I have not liked them. So a lot of thought has to be given to how to create instructional videos that beginning to advanced students will really benefit from. And they have to be priced so that first-time buyers, in particular, will be encouraged to make an impulse purchasing decision.

Now to tamper the optimism I just shared about selling performances and video dance productions. Will dance fans really buy these videos online? If more and more dance videos are made available for free on the Internet, why would people buy downloadable videos? I don't really have an answer to this question yet. I think we have to start by considering a number of different types of performances (including TV shows) to see what might sell. Are TV viewers going online and buying episodes of "Dancing with the Stars" - if they are available for sale? Would families buy downloadable versions of the "Nutcracker"? At what price would these videos sell?

On Google Video, I found some examples of dance videos that are available for sale. Take a look at "African Dance: Sand, Drum, and Shostakovich." You can watch a low-resolution version for free. A high-quality version is available for $19.95 and a day pass for the high-quality version is available for $9.95. I enjoyed watching the free version of this video. But why should I buy the high-quality one? Can I burn it to a DVD disk and watch it on my computer or TV? And if I can't, what's the motivation?

Even though I obviously don't know what will sell and not sell, I'm still surprised that video dance creators (also called dance on camera productions - I never know what to call these films) have not tried to sell their dance videos online. They already have the film or digital video versions of their work, which are often shown at dance film-specific festivals. So why not experiment with online sales to see if revenue can be generated? There are a number of e-commerce systems and it is not difficult to start selling digital work online. In the near future, I hope to explore various e-commerce options for digital video sales.

3) Creating Hybrid Sponsorship Revenue

One possible approach to increasing financial support from your larger corporate sponsors is to provide extended opportunities for online video exposure for these companies. This additional promotional opportunity would augment the coverage they already receive in program guides, from the stage and through traditional offline channels.

For example, if corporate sponsors are given recognition on your website, it is often in the form of short text descriptions and a corporate logo. I'm sure many companies would appreciate more exposure for their products and services, and they would like to share more background information about why they contribute to and support your programs.

The best way to provide this expanded coverage is through video. You could have a dedicated page on your website where visitors could learn about corporate supporters as well as watch videos of executives from these companies discussing why they support the performing arts and why they specifically contribute to your dance performances. This type of video would be compelling -- especially if it's done in a classy way that is not too promotional.

Once again I've never seen this done before. Most corporations have the resources to produce good quality videos and I'm sure they would be delighted to create such videos in which they discuss how they contribute to fostering the arts in their local communities.

So what I'm exploring in this section is whether financial contributions can be increased by providing supporters with enhanced multimedia opportunities to talk directly to your web visitors about how they support the arts. I think that there is a good chance this will work.

4) Using Video to Enhance Fundraising Efforts

There are an emerging crop of web-based applications that are designed to help not-for-profits generate contributions - often in small increments - from online donations.

You can read "How to Use the Internet for Group Fundraising," which provides links to a number of fundraising tools. [via NetSquared]

Another approach to online fundraising is to use your own account on PayPal or another service that makes it easy to process online payments. If you use PayPal instead of the applications listed in the above article, you don't have to pay a cut of contributed revenue to a third party. But these fundraising applications may be worth exploring if you think that they can help you reach a larger audience of potential donors.

I have come across some dance company websites that encourage visitors to make donations. Overall, I am not at all impressed with these solicitation efforts. If I did not otherwise know about the dance company, I would not make a contribution based on the provided information.

So I think that a first step to enhancing these online fundraising efforts is to consider adding video that features members of your dance company talking about your company, your upcoming performances, educational efforts, outreach initiatives and other activities as well as making specific requests for contributions. So far I have not seen video used in such a manner and I think it has the potential to be very helpful in increasing donations.

5) New Crop Video Applications Pay for Content

This suggestion may be a long-shot but it definitely points to an online trend.

On the Mashable, there is a December 14th post, "19 Ways to Make Social Sites Pay," that describes how content creators can get paid for their work by posting it to Web 2.0 applications.

The first part of this article, "Cash for Videos," explores which video hosting sites will pay for your videos. These video sites support a range of different financial models. Some will split advertising revenue. Others will pay a flat fee. And others will pay you based upon the number of views.

The big question is what type of interest is there in dance videos and what types of dance videos will prove to be the most popular - and thus most lucrative. Do you have to produce "An Evolution of Dance" video to generate revenue? Or, can other dance videos actually help you make money?

6) Jumping into User Generated Video

Instead of hosting videos on third-party sites in order to generate revenue, you can also host your videos and the video contributions of others to create a new revenue stream.

The latest hot trend on the Internet is the growth in the culture of participation and consumer generated media (CGM). Time Magazine recognized this trend by making their Person of the Year "You" - all of us, the power of everybody to contribute their own stories.

So if you are interested in creating opportunities for your website visitors to contribute their own stories and dance videos, there are ways to do this at no cost to you. Plus, you can generate revenue from this initiative as well.

The VideoEgg application allows users to edit and contribute video. You can create a customized version of VideoEgg that is accessible via your website so that users can contribute specific types of videos. VideoEgg than adds video ads to pay for this service and splits the ad revenue with you. You can read more about VideoEgg in a post "Behind the Scenes with VideoEgg" in The Next Net.

I see pros and cons with this VideoEgg revenue model. On the upside, you can enter the user-generated media revolution with no money and you can generate ad revenue at the same time. But on the downside, it does not appear that you have any control over what ads are played and how obtrusive these ads will be. I would find this approach more compelling if you had control over which ads played, how long the ads are and when the ads are played (pre-roll or post roll - before or after the videos run). Plus, it would be even better if there was a way to sell your own video ads and add them to the inventory as you choose.

7) The Future of Product Placement

Can dance harness the power of product placement in videos to create new revenue streams?

In October, ClickZ published an article, "Technology Enables Product Placement in CGM," (consumer generated media) that discusses a methodology for embedding links in videos - CGM videos. So, for example, you could be watching a music video and admire the shirt the lead singer is wearing. If the shirt is highlighted, you can click on it to be taken to an e-commerce site where you can learn about and buy the shirt of his back.

This ClickZ article specifically discusses Entertainment Media Works and an embedded product placement video technology called "plinking" (product linking). Unfortunately, there is just about no public description of "Plinking" on the Entertainment Media Works website - very strange.

So embedding product placement links in dance videos may not be around the corner, but it does strike me as offering intriguing possibilities when it does become mainstream. Advertisers need a way to move away from traditional advertising that many people just tune out. So the question is how do advertisers embed their products directly in entertainment content? This is exactly what sponsors have been doing with product placement in movies, TV shows and now computer games and virtual worlds.

Why not do it for dance where clothing and accessories seem like the most obvious possibilities for product placement? Take a look at the Hanes commercial featuring dancers from Momix. (Getting to this ad takes a little extra work because Hanes scrolls its ads across the screen too quickly. So you have to find the image of a dancer (I think there're two of them) and then click on the image to get to the ad.) These ads don't have embedded links. But I think it gives you an idea of what the possibilities might be. In an online video, Momix could be performing a dance wearing clothes from an advertiser. At any time you could click on any of the clothing items and purchase them in your choice of style and color. The dancers or dance company could receive a cut every time a purchase is made or simply receive a flat fee for the product placement.

8) Getting Booked by Presenters

There are presenter booking events where presenters and dance companies get together so that performing arts venues, dance festivals and others can meet with and book dance companies.

It seems to me that much of this process could move to the Internet if presenters could access better quality video of dance companies online. As things stand now, if I were a presenter I would not be able to make booking decisions via the web because of a lack of good quality video and the scarcity of video in general. I'd have to meet dance companies and/or their representatives face-to-face, and request DVD versions of their work.

I haven't spoken with presenters about what goes into the booking decision-making process, but I would like to know what they would want in terms of online video to help facilitate this process.

Maybe it would be beneficial if a password-protected site were created where presenters could access full-length, high-quality videos of the dance companies they were considering for possible bookings. This way dance companies would not have to make complete versions of their work available to the public. And presenters wouldn't have to spend a lot of time requesting DVDs from dance companies. How such an initiative would be supported from a financial standpoint, I'm not sure. But presenters and dance companies do spend money on attending presenter conferences and creating an online version would, overall, cost less money.

But as with most things, a combination of a password-protected website for previewing dance videos as well as an opportunity to meet face-to-face would probably be the optimal approach.

9) Dance Videos Go Mobile

What are the prospects for mobile video as it relates to dance?

Will students download dance instructions videos to their mobile devices? Will dancers in different cities download choreography to their cell phones in order to collaborate on dance works at a distance? Will dance fans watch dance performances on their iPods? Will anybody make any money at this?

I have absolutely no idea. But the wireless market for video is growing and there is a lot of hype about the possibilities. So, at some point, mobile phone users will start to create, distribute, sell and share all types of dance videos. The challenge, as always, will be to create an economic model that actually makes sense for dancers, instructors and dance companies or there won't be a lot of activity in the mobile video arena except for sharing and collaboration (non-revenue generating activities), which is not a bad thing.

As I write this, the only possibility that makes sense to me is that the dance videos that people do buy can be viewed on multiple platforms. So maybe I would buy dance instruction videos via my mobile device and then watch them on the small screen. But at any time, I could watch a better quality version of the same video on my PC or TV. I could not see buying dance videos that could only be played back on a mobile device - it would seem pointless to be limited to such a tiny screen.

10) Dance Video Aggregation and Distribution

I've always been intrigued by Brightcove, a video hosting and syndication service that enables video producers to create a TV-like station for the web. If you set-up a video channel on Brightcove, you can also use their ad network to generate revenue and bloggers and website owners can take your videos and place them on their own sites.

Mashable has a good article, "Brightcove Launches YouTube-Style Video Marketplace," that provides more background about this service.

About a month ago, I came across Dance Channel TV, a video site that uses the Brightcove infrastructure for hosting videos and selling pre-roll ads.

You can either access Dance Channel TV on its own website or you can watch the same video content directly on Brightcove.

If you go back to the Dance Channel TV site, you'll notice that dance videos are broken down by style and that ads run before each video. So far, except for the home page which runs an AOL ad, every time I visit a different channel I'm presented with the same Sheraton hotel ad, which I must have seen about 5 times by now. I'm guessing that Brightcove is not selling a lot of ads to run on its network or this would not have happened. I don't know all the details, but it appears that each time that an ad runs Dance Channel TV gets a cut.

There is also a "trailers" section of the site that appears to provide links to only YouTube dance videos. The YouTube videos are separate from the Brightcove video ad network.

I'm intrigued by Dance Channel TV, but I think that there are limitations with this site. First, there are very few videos. The video quality is not very good. And there is no background description about the uploaded videos or links to websites to learn more about the videos. Plus, I don't understand why creators of dance videos should upload their videos to this site. Why provide your own videos so that Dance Channel TV will generate revenue from ads while you will not get paid anything? But I do like the fact that using Brightcove, unlike VideoEgg above, Dance Channel TV can sell video ads directly to sponsors.

11) Licensing Choreography Online

For the past few months, I've been wondering if there is a way to create an online marketplace for the inexpensive licensing of dance choreography.

Except for a limited number of classic ballet and modern works and maybe some popular Broadway shows, there is very little licensing of dance choreography. (I'm guessing here a bit about what is actually licensed today - I have to learn more about this topic).

Why not create an online service where choreographers could upload videos of their work along with the types of licenses that are available for reproducing this work. A slight variation of this service would be that all choreography would first be evaluated to ensure that it met certain standards - however these standards are determined.

Then, dance companies, teachers (of children, teens and adults) and anybody else could search and review the choreography to find dance pieces that they wanted to produce. It would probably make sense for the video clips to be a couple of minutes in length to give a solid flavor for the work without giving everything away. If a person expressed interest in licensing the work, then they would be given full access to the video upon request.

The advantage with this type of licensing marketplace for dance choreography is that the fees are low so that anybody involved in dance can afford to license the choreography while choreographers and dance companies can generate an additional revenue stream.

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December 14, 2006

Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism

The problem with today's dance criticism is that it's all about the words. As long as there has been dance criticism it has been delivered almost exclusively in print format - primarily through local newspapers.

In light of the fact that digital video is pervasive, easy to create, and relatively inexpensive, I would like to propose that dance writers consider new approaches to online dance criticism that incorporate video footage in addition to the written word.

This type of multimedia criticism would be much more engaging, would provide significantly more educational value, and would make dance more accessible to a much wider audience.

Some Background about My Proposal

I'm relatively new to dance. I've been taking jazz and modern dance classes over the past year and a half -- I usually take about 2-3 classes per week. Yet after all of this dancing as well as going to dance performances, I often do not understand some sections of the dance reviews that I read. I especially have trouble understanding descriptions of dance movement -- I simply do not have enough background yet and it would have helped if I also took ballet classes.

My problems with dance writing could be instantly solved if dance critics incorporated ample video footage into their dance reviews and stories. And clearly, if I'm challenged by some dance reviews, than those with even less exposure do dance or no exposure are probably in the realm of clueless, which means that they don't read any dance criticism of any sort.

So my first question is why isn't every (or most) description of movement (as well as sets, costumes or other visual elements of dance productions) accompanied by a video clip? If I could see video clips of those sections that a writer thought worthwhile to highlight, I would understand exactly what they were describing and I'd get an instant education as well.

New video applications would help facilitate the process of enabling dance writers to share specific sections of a dance with readers/viewers. In a November 10th post, "Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation," I wrote about how a new crop of video editing tools can be used to highlight specific parts of a video clip and then generate links to direct users to these sections.

(This week I came across another social video tagging software program called SceneMaker by Gotuit that looks intriguing. Like many of the video applications I covered in my post about video annotation, this software allows lets you to tag and link to specific parts of the video. [via Read/WriteWeb])

And this type of multimedia dance writing can become even more intriguing as more and more dance video is made available online. As hundreds or thousands of users begin to tag different sections of video in order to identify specific styles or movements, dance writers will be able to link to other video clips that have some connection to the review they are currently writing. So for example, a writer could say, "After you watch the video clip below (from work currently being reviewed), you can watch these two other videos that show how this movement phrase was influenced by two earlier productions of this piece." This capacity to link to specific sections of other videos stored somewhere on the web is very powerful and can provide new types of insight about dance that really have not been considered before.

What Would This Take?

First, dance writers and critics have to believe it is worth exploring multimedia approaches to dance criticism. As of yet, I have never come across articles and discussions exploring this topic. It would be good to see the Dance Critics Association, for example, discuss these possibilities.

Second, I'm essentially talking about online writing since that's the only way to link readers to video clips. Which raises the question of how dance writers would get paid if their multimedia dance coverage only appears online? Will more people access these multimedia dance stories, which would enable more ads to be sold and thus create a potential revenue stream for dance writers?

Third, dance companies have to be actively involved in facilitating a new era in multimedia dance writing. Dance writers can only incorporate lots of video if the video is made available to them. What obstacles currently prohibit dance companies from sharing this video? Lack of interest? Contractual issues? Copyright concerns? Other issues? These issues would all have to be addressed.

Fourth, am I talking about dance criticism or dance education? I'm writing my proposal from a very specific point of view - I want to learn as much about dance as possible. I don't know what percentage of the audience for this type of multimedia dance criticism would access this material for the purpose of deciding whether they want to see a performance versus a desire simply learn more about dance. Or, possibly, for other purposes. But in terms of building a larger readership, adding an accessible educational component to dance criticism may prove to be very worthwhile.

Fifth, for the last part of my proposal - wide-spread tagging of large numbers of video clips so that writers can link to similar styles and movements - I don't know whether this will really happen. A lot of dance companies would have to make their videos available free of change and a large number of users would have to tag sections of these videos.

Please let me know what you think. What would it take to usher in a new era in multimedia dance criticism? And if multimedia dance criticism does take hold, what would it look like? Would it be similar to what I describe above or would it take a completely different form?

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:59 AM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

December 13, 2006

Increase Dance Coverage with Multimedia Releases and Open Rehearsals

It is challenging to get press coverage for dance performances. In recent years, this situation has become even more difficult for dance companies and presenters because many publications have reduced or discontinued their coverage of dance.

Given this challenging media environment, how can those responsible for generating press coverage ensure that as many articles as possible are written about their upcoming dance performances?

In this post, I'd like to offer my answer to this question. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts and reactions as well. Do you agree or disagree with my recommendation? What are your recommendations for increasing coverage of upcoming dance performances?

Game Plan for Increasing Press Coverage and Generating More Buzz

Initial Premises

1) If fewer dance critics are writing previews and reviews of dance for large-circulation print publications, then it's necessary to reach out to other journalists such as theater and arts critics as well as journalists who write about the themes you address in your dance pieces.

2) Publicity campaigns are not just for print publications and are not just for professional journalists. There are thousands of websites and blogs that may be interested in covering your upcoming and current dance performances. Also, it's helpful to keep in mind that many bloggers are not traditional writers and are not just looking for standard press releases - more about what they are looking for below.

3) Dance is visual. So the best way to generate interest in dance is by making online video and pictures available to anybody who wants to cover your dance performances.

Action Plan

Part I: Create a Multimedia Press Release

Press releases that promote dance performances don't do justice to the art of dance. Dance is, of course, about motion in space. So why not add videos and other multimedia content to your releases so that recipients can have instant visual access to your work?

So my first recommendation is that dance companies and presenters create their own customized version of a "social media press release."

Earlier this year, public relations firm, Shift Communications, introduced what it called a "social media press release." You can view a PDF template of this new type of press release and you can view an actual example. (I wrote about this new type of press release earlier this year.)

You'll notice that when you look at the PDF template that this release format gets right to the point. First you'll see bullet points that highlight key news developments in an easy-to-digest manner, and then follows relevant multimedia content. These multimedia links are critical for dance. If you want to grab the attention of journalists, videos and pictures are much more likely to capture their attention as opposed to plain text.

I do not believe that dance companies and presenters are well served by placing a line at the end of a release that says, "Pictures are available upon request." The multimedia content ought to be front and center as the example of a Social Media Press Release shows.

There are many types of videos that you can make available:

- Interviews with artistic director and dancers
- Behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsals
- Clips from dress rehearsals
- Videos of performances, and
- Video that is likely to appeal to non-dance audiences

You'll want to put both the videos and pictures on your website (or a third-party websites that hosts videos and pictures) so that journalists have instant access to this multimedia content.

A word about creating multimedia press releases that appeal to writers who do not write about dance. One of my points at the beginning of this post is that fewer newspapers are including articles about dance. So as you prepare your press releases and corresponding video content, a lot of thought should be devoted to story angles that are broad enough in nature that they will appeal to any and all writers covering theater, the arts, entertainment and, possibly, topics outside of the arts all together.

Part II: Use Popular Video and Picture Hosting Websites

Since you'll be creating and uploading videos and pictures so that they are accessible to the press, it is also worthwhile to place this multimedia content on popular video (YouTube and Google Video, for example) and photo (Flickr, for example) sites. Plus if you visit the following article, you can find a huge list of video hosting applications.

There are four main reasons to place your videos and pictures on the more popular video and photo sites:

- More people will come across your multimedia content and thus learn about your upcoming performances.

- Many of these sites make it easy for anybody to embed these multimedia files on their own blogs and websites. For example, newspapers are beginning to embed videos directly with the text versions of articles that appear on their websites. If you upload an engaging video to YouTube or another video hosting service, it is very easy for an online newspaper to place this video directly on their website. Readers will find the stories about your dance company more engaging than just reading text alone.

- But your audience does not consist only of professional journalists. Your multimedia content is likely to be of interest to bloggers who write about dance, theater, the arts and entertainment. Plus, bloggers who write about topics related to the themes of your dance may be interested too. For example, if your work deals with environmental issues, there are many bloggers who might be interested in providing coverage of your performance - especially if they can easily add video and pictures directly to their own blogs.

- For practical reasons, you may not want to put large video and picture files on your own website if you're not certain that your website will be reliable for this type of high bandwidth content.

Part III: Dress Rehearsals for Local Photographers and Videographers

If you invite photographers from local news organizations to take pictures of dress rehearsals, why not open these events to both professional and amateur photographers and videographers?

Imagine that 10, 20 or more amateur photographers and videographers came to your dress rehearsal to take lots of pictures and videos. This multimedia content would then be posted to blogs, websites, video and picture hosting websites as well as personal pages on social networking sites such as MySpace.

Plus, you could encourage everybody who creates online content to use the same tags to identify your dance performance. For example, the tag "holidaydanceinbaltimore2006" - well, you could probably come up with something more specific. But the main point is that if everybody uses the same tag, you can easily link to all the videos and pictures from your own website. Your website visitors could click on a link that would, for example, take them to all videos from your dress rehearsal that have been uploaded to YouTube or another video hosting service.

There are potential problems to this open rehearsal idea. First, there may be copyright issues to deal with. And, second, the quality of some of the videos and pictures may be terrible - whether or not this potential quality issue makes this open rehearsal idea a bad idea is up to you. The upside is that you can generate a lot of publicity.

Summary

That's my recommendation for increasing publicity for upcoming dance performances in an environment when the amount of space devoted to dance coverage in traditional publications is dwindling.

Let me know what you think.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:46 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2006

Open Thread: How Do You Use Your Dance-Focused MySpace Page?

As you can tell from the new "Dance on MySpace" section in the left-hand column of my blog, many dance companies have created pages on MySpace, the popular networking site.

I'd be very interested to learn how dancers and dance companies are using their MySpace pages to promote upcoming performances and communicate with audiences.

If you have a MySpace page, it would be great if you posted a comment and shared some background about your dance company/dancing and discussed how you used MySpace to share video, pictures and other content with your readers.

Posted by Doug Fox at 3:16 PM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

10 Ways to Use Online Dance Videos

The global dance community is in the relatively early stages of embracing online video. I think it's very likely that we will soon see an explosion in the use of video by dancers, dance companies, writers, educators, presenters and others connected to dance.

In this post, I'd like to offer my thoughts about the main ways that video is being used or can be used by dancers. I will be exploring all of these topics in greater depth in the near future. Plus, I'll be writing about a number of different video tools and applications.

If you'd like, please share your thoughts about which of the below uses of videos will be most important (or least important) to dancers and dance companies. Or, are there other uses of video that I did not include? Plus, how are you using dance videos today?

Video and Dance:

1) Multimedia press releases: Direct links to dance videos can be included in press releases so that dance writers and others can instantly watch clips of performances and, possibly, embed these videos in their online stories. These same videos can be used by bloggers and other non-traditional journalists.

2) New era of dance writing and criticism: In the age of video, it makes no sense for dance reviews to be all text. It would be nice to see explorations by dance writers and critics of how they can incorporate video into their reviews in order to develop new approaches to dance criticism.

3) Deep tagging offers intriguing possibilities: There are a number of web-based, video editing applications that allow users to tag one or more segments within a single video clip. This means that there are new ways to explore, document and share dance videos that have barely been contemplated before. Deep tagging will have ramifications in education, marketing, dance criticism, and remote collaboration among choreographers and dancers.

4) New frontiers in dance education: Deep tagging holds the possibility of revolutionizing the study of dance - no exaggeration! As more and more videos are available online and as the concept and use of deep tagging spreads, it becomes possible for educators and students to make connections that would have been virtually impossible to make before these developments. For example, a dance student could conduct a search for specific tags to identify a specific movement phrase and receive a list of all video segments that are identified by these tags. Clearly, a lot of work must be done before the dance community reaches that type of distributed collaboration, but it is a possibility.

5) Dance classes embrace video: I haven't seen this in performing arts dance classes, but I have seen this in social dance classes: At a point during a dance class, the instructor invites students to videotape a piece of choreography so that students can study and practice it in between dance classes. Sometimes I would really like to videotape the routine we learn in the modern dance classes I take. But, at the same time, I think it would be partially counter-productive since part of learning to dance is developing the capacity to process and recall movement and video might slow down the development of this skill. That said, there are probably a number of ways that video can be used in support of dance classes for students of all ages.

6) Choreography at a distance: Choreographers and dancers are not always able to meet together for extended periods of time. So videos of rehearsals play an increasingly important role as artists work together while separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. Today it's easy to shoot video, do a quick edit and share it with choreographers and dancers who are not in the same city.

7) Presenters turn to online video: Presenters - such as performing arts venues and dance festival organizers - are always looking for dance companies to book for future performances. As of today, online video is underused in this arena. As more dance companies post good quality dance videos online, it will be easier for presenters to make booking decisions without meeting dance companies face-to-face.

8) Using videos to get auditions: I've seen applications for performing arts schools and university programs where dancers are asked to include a video audition on DVD or videocassette. But I haven't seen that many websites lately where dancers create a profile and upload an audition video - they actually may be out there, I just haven't looked for awhile. Then, once dancers upload their videos, dance companies, shows, music video producers and others looking to book dancers could review the online auditions of dancers. I'm skeptical about how well this could work, but maybe good quality web-based applications can be developed that are used by a large number of dancers so that those booking dancers have a wide pool of dancers to choose from.

9) Promoting upcoming dance performances: The most popular use of dance video today is to promote dance companies and thus upcoming dance performances. Dancers and dance companies upload videos to their websites, blogs, MySpace pages as well as to popular video hosting sites in order to create more awareness for their work and performances.

10) New revenue model: How can dancers and instructors generate additional revenue with the help of digital video? One way is to sell dance performances, classes and video dance productions online. This market is in its very, very early stages. While there is still need for lots more experimentation, there's no reason that the market for online sales of dance videos cannot grow significantly. In addition to selling videos directly to customers, other revenue models can be explored such as providing videos for free in conjunction with banner and video ads.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:49 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 11, 2006

Rachel Howard's Video Preview of Tango Con*Fusion

In Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle, dance writer and blogger Rachel Howard has a story about Tango Con*Fusion, an all-female Argentine Tango dance troupe, that will be performing starting this Wednesday at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. [Via Root Magazine]

What I found especially interesting is that Rachel created and narrated a video story that accompanies the article about Tango Con*Fusion.

Most reviews, previews and stories about dance are still in text-only format - maybe with one or two pictures. But, I've seen virtually no online dance stories in major newspapers that include a video segment.

I think that the move toward video coverage along the lines of what Rachel has done is an important development for dance companies that never get enough coverage.

More and more newspapers now incorporate video clips into their online publications. So if dance companies begin to include links to online video of their dancing, I think that it's likely that an increasing number of publications will embed these clips into their stories. Or, alternatively, writers will watch these videos and be inspired to create their own video stories for their publications.

I'm going to write much more about the topic of dance publicity and multimedia content soon. Dance is obviously a visual art form that takes place in both time and space. So the optimal medium for capturing dance is video. Yet, 99.9% of the coverage of dance is done with words - not a very worthwhile way to get people excited about upcoming dance performances.

By asking the following question, I don't mean to take anything away from the reviews written by Rachel and many other dance critics, but I think it's an important one to consider:

What is more likely to motivate somebody to attend an upcoming dance performance?

1) A written preview or review, or

2) A video story or short documentary.

From my perspective, the question is very easy to answer: It's the video!

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Ballet Companies on MySpace

I've been spending time going through MySpace lately to see how popular it is for dancers and dance companies. I was surprised by how many dance companies have set-up MySpace pages, which often include lots of pictures and videos.

If you go to the left-hand column of my home page, you'll see that I've included links to just over 20 ballet companies on my space. I'll add these MySpace links to all of the pages on my site soon. Also, I'll add modern and other dance company MySpace pages as well.

If you have a dance company MySpace page or know of ones I should include, please let me know.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:29 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

December 7, 2006

Open Thread: Write About Your Dance Blog

It's been over a year since my last post that asked dance bloggers to write about their blogs.

So I thought since there are more dance bloggers and we've been talking about dance, blogging and community, it was a good time to create an updated thread where dance bloggers could write about their blogs.

If you have a dance blog (or touch upon dance topics in your blog), I encourage you to post a comment below. In your comment, please write about the focus of your blog, what topics you cover, what your connection is to dance and any other related subjects you'd like to discuss.

Thanks!!!

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:13 AM - Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)

December 6, 2006

Excellent Boogie Woogie Dance Video

On the website for jazz and blues pianist Silvan Zingg, you can watch a wonderful "Dancin The Boogie" video. (It's the second link under "Videos").

This dance video is an inspiration - especially since I'm about to start taking swing dance classes.

Posted by Doug Fox at 1:50 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 5, 2006

Andrew Taylor Writes About Funny Uncles Blog in The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on his Artful Manager blog has a nice write up about the Funny Uncles Blog that I've been working on in collaboration with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

The Funny Uncles blog is an experimental initiative to explore new and different ways to share, communicate and collaborate with audiences prior to, during and after performances of the dance work of the same name. On the
Funny Uncles Blog, you can view pictures and video as well as listen to audio interviews with artistic director Peter DiMuro and others. In the new year, we'll be adding more community-oriented features and providing users with the opportunity to submit their own videos and stories.

Posted by Doug Fox at 3:40 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 4, 2006

Search All Dance Blogs

In my blogroll to the left, there are now 45 dance blogs listed. It's great to see a community of dance bloggers emerging.

Since there are now a good number of dance blogs, I thought I'd use the Google Co-Op search engine to create an easy way to search all 45 of these dance blogs. Give it a spin:

The search results generated are just from these dance blogs. If there are other dance blogs that I should add to the search engine or my blogroll, please let me know.

As you can tell, so far I've only listed English language blogs. I'll soon add a new section to my blogroll for non-English language blogs. I'm not sure what to do in terms of the Google search engine. Maybe I should add all blogs (English and non-English) to the Google search engine - what do you think?

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:13 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

December 2, 2006

Art and Real Life Bump Into Each Other in the Same Newspaper

Here's a picture from a front-page New York Times story, "As Crime Soars for Venezuela, Chávez Coasts," in this morning's edition of the paper:

Here's a picture from a dance review, "Art and Real Life Bump Into Each Other Onstage," also in today's New York Times of Risa Jaroslow & Dancers in “Resist/Surrender”:

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:36 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)